To all the nay-sayers who thought TFC's attendance would decline after the first season hype was over, you should probably fire your economist as season seats were renewed at 90-95%. Add that to an enormous waiting list and TFC will once again sell out the season! So to all those people who think they know the Toronto market and thought MLS would just be hype...."take off eh!" Especially after long winless streaks and record goaless streaks, the TFC faithful still prove that Toronto is a class market and is much better for the MLS than most of markets you people belong support. http://www.globesports.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20071003.wsptfc3/GSStory/GlobeSportsSoccer/home End of the article ^
Don't forget that MLSE jacked up the prices for season tickets, but yet, 90%-95% season tickets were still renewed.
Kudos to Toronto Fans setting the standard. One mistake though, TFC should of fired their economist (probably a MLS idiot) who thought a 20K stadium would be sufficient. Hope you win some games next year.
Well the government is the actual owner of BMO field as it is our National Stadium and part of the reason TFC was accepted into the MLS was becasue we had a new stadium to come into. Therefore TFC owners had to accept what the city wanted to provide considering that it was reasonable. And besides, no one in the league thought Toronto would get the support like it did. The league average is much lower than 20K and so why would Toronto expect they would get 20K+ support when not many Torontonians followed the MLS becasue we all had our teams overseas to follow. SO I think initially I woulnd't have built a stadium with more than 20K either considering the MLS was not a highly regarded league at the time TFC was considering the expansion.
We have 15,000 season tix holders for nex year and more on the waiting list. MLSE decided to cap it at that number so that some people could get into the games and they wouldn't have to commit for the whole season. Its actually in a way smart because then more people will get a chance to go to games. They will want to come back because of the atmophere, the demand will keep increasing. and the club will be more and more popular. I'll be honest, when I bought my tix I didnt think it would be anything like this. Its been 1000% better then what I expected when I bought the tix.
It's actually 16k including season ticket equivalents (which is how they described it in a recent story) leaving just over 4k for individual game sales and so on. From what I've heard, the waiting list is about 5k. They upped the cut-off from 14k to 16k for this season. Now, if we could only get rid of the suits (but then again, they are the only guys who can afford the most expensive seats). B
Add a second level and a roof. And real freaking grass. Its Canada dammit, surely you have some real grass lying around.
Exactly! Real grass is the key! If Man U can play with built in heaters underneath the grass why not in Toronto? They don't play during the real cold winter months anyway so what's the difference?
TFC doesn't own BMO field, City of Toronto does. They own the field and plan on using it during the winter months. So that is why they have field turf in BMO field. As for the roof, well City of Toronto owns BMO field and they're too cheap to add a roof since they have no money right now.
BMO has other uses, MLS games, Canada games, concerts, etc that would just kill the grass over a seaon and would be costly. If i had my way i would rather more seating in the North and south ends, with an additional to the east stand a couple of seasons later.
Expensive is relative as I'm sure they are making a profit out of two straight sell out seasons. What I want to know is how much does the flow of the game really change by playing on the turf as opposed to the real grass?
im sure they amke a lot on just the beer, what is the cost of a tall boy at the brewers retail, it can;'t be the $9.50 the charge at TFC games? $9.50 x 20,000 = $190,000 x 17 home games( including the two friendlies) = $3,230,000.00....talk about profit.
pretty close. gotta remember that the place is also rented out to local soccer teams as a condition of the government funding for the stadium. for example, right now there's a bubble on it and people play there throughout the winter. In the summer time it's even busier with rentals. the community usage requirement basically makes it impossible to put in grass and keep it nice. TFC doesn't own the stadium (city does) and MLSE, which owns TFC and just operates the stadium, barely spent anything on the construction of the stadium.
I mean i remember the NY COSMOS playing on the astroturf of Giants Stadium but they were all national team players and ajusted easily. Anyone know how it feels to play on that stuff and also how much of game changes?
Fieldturf is a lot different than Astroturf. In Vancouver they have a huge sports complex where they play soccer and American football where all 9 fields are fieldturf. http://www.fieldturf.com/product/overview.cfm It has all these little rubber granules that mimic dirt, and the surface is really soft, the pitch never needs to be mowed and its a lot better than playing Sunday league on gravel pitches. A large part of why BMO field is field turf (apart from the Canadian winter) is I believe Fieldturf is a Canadian company. Other places like Seattle where irrigation is hard due to proximity to the sea level it poses a great alternative to those carpet astroturf pitches (like what Vancouver's BC Place used to have, we played some youth tournaments and you'd always come home with a banged up knee from the cement underneath the rug). The bounce of the ball is a little different, and developing friction and feeling off balanced is a little common running around on Fieldturf. It won't ever be the same, but for some markets its a great alternative to either a hard grass pitch, a soggy grass pitch from poor irrigation or just those pastiche pitches like Kansas City. And the stress on your knees is far less than astro-turf but still more than grass.
If this is the case which I don't doubt, I just want to know why is it that the Europeans hate to play on this stuff?
In the end its still not grass, and I think theres still the thought in some peoples minds that its the old carpet on concrete astro-turf. Fieldturf is great and all, but I think some players would prefer playing their topflight soccer on a real grass pitch, call them "eurosnobs" if you will. TFC seems to be doing alright on it .
Because it is not grass. And the top tier stadia have pretty good, well drained pitches. So that "advantage" field turf has is somewhat nullified.